Jones Day

Jones Day was founded as Blandin & Rice in 1893 by two partners, Edwin J. Blandin and William Lowe Rice, in Cleveland, Ohio.[8] Frank Ginn joined the firm in 1899, and it changed its name to Blandin, Rice & Ginn.[9] Rice was murdered in August 1910.[10] In 1912, Thomas H. Hogsett joined the firm as partner, and[9] it became Blandin, Hogsett & Ginn that year,[11] and Tolles, Hogsett, Ginn & Morley a year later after the retirement of Judge Blandin and the addition of partners Sheldon H. Tolles and John C. Morley.[9] After Morley retired, in 1928, the firm adopted the name Tolles, Hogsett & Ginn.[9]

In its early years, the firm was known for representing major industries in the Cleveland area, including Standard Oil and several railroad and utility companies.[12]

In November 1938, then-managing partner Thomas Jones led the merger of Tolles, Hogsett & Ginn with litigation-focused firm Day, Young, Veach & LeFever to create Jones, Day, Cockley & Reavis. The merger was effective January 1, 1939.[13] The firm's Washington, D.C., office was opened in 1946, becoming the firm's first office outside Ohio.[14] In 1967, the firm merged with D.C. firm Pogue & Neal to become Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue.[15]

Jones Day offices in Washington, D.C.

As of 2018, Jones Day was the fifth largest law firm in the U.S. and the 13th highest grossing law firm in the world.[1]

Jones Day partner Don McGahn, who was previously a member of the Federal Election Commission, served as counsel for the 2016 Donald Trump presidential campaign and was later nominated to serve as Trump's White House Counsel.[19][20] As of March 2017, at least 14 Jones Day attorneys had been appointed to work for the Trump administration.[12]

In March 2017, the firm's Munich office was raided in order to obtain confidential client documents held by the firm in relation to its Munich-based Volkswagen emissions scandal internal investigation. The public prosecutor's office seized electronic data and "a large number of paper files" for use in the Brunswick, Germany-based investigation of Volkswagen Group subsidiary Audi AG. German courts upheld the legality of the raid, and no further charges resulted, as of March 2019.[21]

In 2019, six plaintiffs, who were former Jones Day Associates, filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against the firm in Washington DC federal court.[22] The plaintiffs allege unfair pay between female and male associates at the firm. Jones Day has denied the allegations made by the plaintiffs and the case is currently pending further litigation.[23]

Notable alumni of the firm include:

• Antonin Scalia, former Supreme Court Justice
• Timothy Dyk, judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
• Jeffrey Sutton, judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
• Jane Harman, former U.S. Congresswoman
• Erwin Griswold, former United States Solicitor General and Harvard Law School Dean
• Mark McCormack, sports agent and IMG founder
• Marvin Bower, McKinsey & Co. consultant; Bower reportedly based his approach to management consulting—now the dominant model in that profession—on his observations of the practice of law at Jones Day
• Megyn Kelly, journalist
• L. Welch Pogue, former Chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board
• James Brokenshire, Northern Ireland Secretary under Prime Minister Theresa May
• Donald McGahn, former White House Counsel
• Noel Francisco, United States Solicitor General
• Gregory Katsas, judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
• Chaka Patterson, fundraiser for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, former Chief of the Cook County State's Attorney's Office, Civil Division [24][25][26]
• Justin Herdman, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio
• Carmen Guerricagoitia McLean, associate judge on the Superior Court of the District of Columbia

• Official website